


Bruises

by TheMouthKing



Series: I've learned how to deal with you [1]
Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: Aftercare, Kink Neal, M/M, Spanking, Switching, fighting for top, pain kink link, power bottom!Link, safe words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-12-09 05:55:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11663004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMouthKing/pseuds/TheMouthKing
Summary: Sometimes, Link needs to be hurt.





	Bruises

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my many enablers. I know bottom!Link isn't for everyone, but this is intended to be read as my usual take on Link (toppy and in control) just needing a switch.

Link stands in the shower and lets the steady stream of hot water soothe his sore muscles.

The bathroom’s clouded with steam from the heat as Link lets the water do its best to wash away the ache. He’s been standing there long enough that the sting of the water meeting the lines raked down his back have dulled to the background. Right now he’s only just sore, barely come down from the soaring highs of what he’d been so desperate for Rhett to do to him. For him. Later, he’ll feel it more. Limbs heavy and achy, the good kind of sore. The kind like what comes after a long run, hand in hand with the endorphins, the release.

He’s mottled with soon-to-be bruises, reddish patterns over his skin that will darken as they settle into bruises in the next few days, purpling as they sink into his skin. The heat of the shower almost conceals them, rises enough blood to the surface of his pale skin that the untrained eye might not catch them. Fingertip shaped marks dug hard into those thin hips and shoulders, one or two speckling his neck. Handprints layered red over his buttocks, deep and hot at the center and feathering out at the edges with the distinct shapes of thick fingers.

He’s feeling raw. That’s the best description of how he is right now. He’s softer for it, every mark left on his body a wave crashing over the high castle of hard edges that had built up, the anxiety, the tension, the stress. Wearing him down blow by blow until the tightly wound, snappish Link was nowhere to be seen and all that was left was this vulnerable thing. Control let go. Taking what comes.

 

* * *

 

Link’s been snapping at people all day.

He’s on edge, like he’s about to fucking break. Even Rhett’s found himself on the receiving end of it. Link’s always bossy, often controlling, but when it rises to an intolerable peak Rhett knows what he needs. At least he does now. Now that they’ve negotiated this space Link gets into, figured out what it is he needs when things get like this. How to help him out of his head so he can settle back into his skin and bones. So he can breathe and feel it expand his lungs instead of rise his panic.

Link needs to be hurt.

He needs it rough, needs it to be _so much_ so he can feel it. Almost too much.

Rhett can see it in his eyes, when it’s time. He gets wild, like a stallion that hasn’t been broken, throwing off every attempt to be saddled and tamed. Rhett knows how to deal with him by now, he’s figured him out. Knows just what it is Link needs when he gets like this.

He slams Link up against the wall of some hotel an hour out of town, hears and feels the hard _thud_ with a sense of satisfaction. If the air wasn’t already punched out of Link’s chest, Rhett steals it with the kiss he chases him with, hard and possessive and biting. Link doesn’t get to take control. Not today. That’s not what he needs.

You wouldn’t know it by looking at him, though, by watching the interplay between them. Link’s bucking against him like he’s grappling for the top, like he’s fighting to win. He’s stronger now than he was in high-school, in college when the collision of their bodies landed them on the floor of their shared dorm room. He gives Rhett a run for his money now, especially when he’s like this. A live wire, fueled by this single-minded need. By this drive to provoke, to pull the very worst (or very best) out of Rhett by _pushing back_.

They’ve always been competitive, so it’s no wonder Link knows. That he pulls this shit when he needs this, that the way he goes about trying to get pushed around is to push Rhett around, to grab him and handle him rough in order to get treated rough.

There’s no rules here. No ring, no arena, no holds barred. Teeth come out and nails dig in as they bite and claw their way to the upper hand. Link fights like he wants to win, like he wants to get Rhett pinned to the bed, like he wants the upper hand, to take what he wants, when the truth is that what he wants is to lose. He’s trying to rile him up so when Rhett finally gets an edge up he’s moving fast and holding him too hard, treating him too roughly, handling him without care. Link needs it rough and dirty, needs the pace set punishing. It’s gotta be like this if it’s gonna take him where he’s gotta go.

“Whatcha gonna do about it,” Link growls into Rhett’s space when he launches himself at the barest hint of an in, tenuous footing at best on this upper hand, though he’s acting like he’s got Rhett just where he wants him. Like a cat with a paw on the mouse’s tail.

“Cocky little shit,” Rhett’s breathless but he’s barely beat. His back’s to the wall, for now but not for long. As soon as he gets his hands on Link he’s got their positions reversed again, got the drop on him and he’s angling the fall to take him flat on his back on the bed.

“Gonna fuck you into that mattress, that’s what,” Rhett says, tearing his shirt off over his head as he watches Link bounce back on the mattress, landing legs spread as he tries to catch himself and launch back up.

Rhett’s moving fast to keep that from happening, but not quite fast enough to make it atop him before he recovers somewhat. Rhett takes a knee to the gut as he moves too fast, afraid to slow down, afraid Link would lunge, escape. He grunts at the collision but it just serves to fuel this, the spike of aggravation has him manhandling him a little more roughly. Hands on his thighs, on his hips, not taking any more of his bullshit as he moves him bodily from his back to his front. Pushes him down on the bed face down, hand splayed in the center of his bare back to hold him pinned as the other yanks his tight fucking underpants down his thighs.

 _Fuck_ but stripping Link had been a goddamned ordeal. At least he’d managed that before they’d made it to the bed. Rhett regrets that he’s still wearing his own underwear, that he hadn’t had a chance to strip that off, that he’ll still need to take back a hand at some point to free himself. To fuck Link.

For now, though, he’s got other things on his mind.

His big hand comes down on Link’s tight, round ass. _Hard._

Link sounds shocked, like this has never happened before. Like this isn’t exactly what he’d wanted to have happen.

“Don’t you fucking act surprised, Neal.” Rhett’s breathing heavy from the fight of it.

The next spank is as hard as the first, as loud and jarring. The slap of skin on skin is deeply satisfying as he lays big red handprints down over the pale skin of Link’s ass like layered fallen leaves, pink overlapping and deepening into red.

Link’s making these _sounds_. God, he’s _squirming._ At times it’s hard to tell if he’s trying to move into the line of the next strike or away from it. Link’s cheek’s pressed to the bed and his face is as red and hot as his ass is, splotchy with breathlessly overheated arousal. He’s gasping for air. He sounds like he’s dying or coming.

Rhett spanks him till his palm’s hot, till he can’t anymore, till he sees the dark haired man beneath him start to shake. He still hasn’t said it, still hasn’t used the word that would bring this near-violent ride to a screeching halt.

“Color,” Rhett demands, breathless, squeezing his hand into a fist to encourage the blood back into his palm.

Link doesn’t answer at first. He’s just sucking in air like a man drowning, making these soft fucking sounds, these fucking whimpery sounds of need, squirms his hips like he’s chasing something. Like he’s needy for fucking _more._

“Stoppit, Neal. I said color, now. Nothing more’s gonna happen till you tell me…” Rhett gets a little overwhelmed, here. When they’re this far in, this deep. When Link’s hurting so much already and gagging for more, when he’s mindless and wild. Rhett would never go here if Link didn’t need to come sometimes, would never push Link this far if it wasn’t someplace he needed to go. The first several times they’d done it, he’d gotten downright terrified he’d gone too far. That he’d really hurt Link.

“....g-green,” Link chokes out, voice hoarse from overuse. He’s been loud, and he’ll get louder before they’re through.

“You sure?” Rhett noses along the sweat at the back of Link’s neck, lays a kiss between his shoulder blades, sweeter than Link needs it.

Link can’t manage any more words, just nods, frantic. Licks his lips to wet them and _tries_ , fails, sighs loud and tries to draw his hand up, tries for leverage on the bed. Tries to push back against Rhett, to press his ass up against Rhett’s underwear-trapped cock to send a message, but he can’t manage that level of coordination. It doesn’t help that Rhett’s at his back, keeping him down.

Green and the nod were enough.

Rhett’s big hand finds Link’s ass again and this time drags down, slow, fingers smoothing between his cheeks. Rub against his entrance, dry, teasing. Link’s incoherent, turns his face the other way, back arching like he thinks he can move somehow to trick Rhett’s dick inside him without the next step and the next. Rhett offers a swat that rocks the shorter man, jolts him, steals a shuddering, fucking sinful gasp from his lips.

“Who’s in control here?” Rhett’s lips ghost Link’s neck.

Link answers with an incoherent sound groaned into the mattress, fingers curling in the sheets.

“...I can’t hear you, baby…”

“You are… daddy,” Link’s voice is low and thick, and he swallows. Steels himself.

“That’s right,” Rhett praises. “And you’re gonna be good while I fuck you into this mattress, aren’t you, boy?” he asks, voice darker than Link thinks he’s ever heard and _oh my god._ He groans his acquiescence because. Fuck. _Yes_. He’ll do anything, be anything. Good, bad, motionless, slutty, anything Rhett fucking wanted if he just promises to keep talking to him like that. Manhandling him like this. If he makes good on that threat and fucks him hard.

There’s some movement between them and it’s his fingers slick against Link’s ass, spreading lube down between his cheeks and circling that tight entrance and Link _keens_. It’s too much, too _much_ and he’s squirming again, those skinny hips moving under Rhett’s ministrations like he wants to get away, like it’s more than he can take already. With his ass as hot as it feels, it’s like he can’t relax, like his body’s all coiled up and clamped down tight, and he’s afraid he can’t take it. Not even one finger, not nothing, and he whimpers in the seconds before Rhett starts sinking that finger in.

It goes in easier than Link’s afraid it will and when they hit the slide of it, Link’s lips part in this obscenely long, low groan that’s rising swiftly. “Oh fuck,” the words are thin, airless, “Oh fuck, _ohfuck._ ”

“You can fucking take this, Neal.” It’s a pep-talk seared into the skin of his neck, hot like a brand. “Stop fightin’ me like you got any control over this… cause you don’t. You’re mine… your ass belongs to me… just like this tattoo says,” Rhett’s thumb grazes the edge of the black lettering on the cheek that doesn’t read _Christy_ , drags along the top edge of the _R_ for _Rhett_. Link mewls and shudders with the effort it takes to fight against himself, a harder war to fight, to win. To stand down.

“Please…” he doesn’t know how to say what it is he’s asking for, doesn’t have any words left. Doesn’t have hardly anything left. “Please… _please._ ”

“...since you asked so nice,” Rhett presses a kiss to the back of Link’s neck and soon it’s two fingers, then three, opening him up slow enough that Link starts breaking again. That he starts losing the war he’s fighting.

Then they’re fucking. Rhett sinking in deep and Link letting out the air from his lungs like he’s got to, to make room for all of Rhett to fit inside him. He doesn’t have any fight left in him but it doesn’t stop Rhett holding him down, one big hand pressed to the back of his head, the other gripping his bicep tight, keeping him down against the mattress. Keeping him from moving, forcing him to just take whatever it was Rhett was willing to give. The only motion is Rhett’s, the steady rock of their hips together, skin slapping wet between them.

The pace picks up and Rhett’s gotta get a better hold of him and now, instead, he’s gripping Link’s skinny hips _tight_ , so tight there’ll be bruises later in the shape of his hands, his hard fingertips digging into him there and he pulls him back as much as he fucks into him, chasing _hard_ as much as he’s chasing _fast_ and _deep_. Link’s caught up. He’s lost. He’s like a rock against the relentless ocean, Rhett crashing over him again and again. Rhett over and in him, behind and around him, everywhere all at once. Rhett, filling all his senses, taking him over, possessing him. Rhett’s all he knows, all he cares to know, and _God_ if he could stay right here. Like this. Lost at sea inside himself and just so full of _Rhett_ then he would, but this isn’t a place he can stay. Not somewhere he can live, because it would tear him apart.

It’s like trying to make a home on the sun. It’s electric for a second but then it’ll destroy you in the blink of an eye, and Link’s lost. He’s making these inhuman sounds and he’s shaking like he’s being pulled under, and he’s coming apart with a shout. Or at least, someone’s shouting. Maybe it’s Rhett, but it’s hard to tell, hard to know just where Link ends and Rhett begins in skin or sound. They collapse together, sweating and panting, gasping for air, Rhett still pressed against the full length of Link’s body like he’s trying to blot him out. The truth is he can’t move yet, can’t manage to roll off him, and he knows from experience Link doesn’t want him to.

 

* * *

 

Rhett steps into the shower behind him, interrupts his thoughts, the memories of what had unfolded just moments before. He’s careful not to touch his sore backside, but his big hands skim up Link’s arms gently, almost reverently, and he presses a kiss against the hot, wet skin of his shoulder, that statuesque collar bone, and murmurs, “Bed’s all made up again and ready for when we’re done in here…”

Rhett wasn’t shirking on the aftercare; he’d lingered in bed with him as long as he’d needed him to before sending Link off to the shower first, promising that as soon as he stripped the bed down and remade it, so they don’t have to sleep in the havoc they’d wreaked on the sheets, that he’d follow him in.

“Mmm…” Link just hums, lets his head fall back against Rhett’s shoulder. He knows it’ll smart but he does it anyway, he leans back against Rhett’s body. Lets himself be held, ignores the heat of his reddened ass in favor of the warmth of Rhett pulling him in for a hug from behind.

“You okay?” Rhett asks, the concern obvious as he noses along below Link’s ear. He can’t help it. He always worries after, wonders if he’s gone too far this time. If he’s gonna find a limit somewhere Link hadn’t expected him to.

“Yeah,” Link murmurs softly, the word coming easy. He’s so much more relaxed, all the tight and anxious tension gone from him. “Yeah, I am… hey, Rhett?”

“Yeah?”

Link lets his head lean more into Rhett’s cheek, nuzzles awkwardly from the angle he’s got him at to get just that little bit closer without expending the energy to turn, to face him.

“Thank you.”

“Anytime, bo… I’ve got you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for liking, commenting and subscribing!


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